Well, that got everyone to their feet. They cheered and stamped. Men rushed towards the platform and called out at the Caliph for the right to be the first martyr in the renewed assault on the walls of Constantinople. There was a general chanting of ‘Holy War! Holy War!’ A polite smile on his face, Eusebius was listening carefully to the whispered interpretation of all this. If Meekal ever let him go, he’d have a fine report to make to young Justinian.
But old Abdullah had done his job. Now, shaking like a monkey against the bars of its cage, he was carried back under the shade, and Meekal was strutting about in readiness to get to his main point. And he was getting there – even if it was taking longer than I’d anticipated.
‘Your Majestic Holiness,’ he crowed, ‘my greatest gift yet to the Faith of Mohammed – may Peace be ever upon Him – is the fire of the Greeks. Eight years have I laboured. Eight long years have I laboured in the face of doubt and plain opposition from those whose duty told them otherwise.’ More nervous bobbing of heads beside the Caliph. ‘But my efforts now have been crowned. Be it known that the horrid fire that the Greeks poured on the heads of the Faithful shall now be returned threefold. When next the armies of the Faithful shall beset the walls of Constantinople, there will be no second defeat.
‘Yes! Yes, O Great and Mighty Commander of the Faithful – I have given victory to the Faith. And if anyone doubts, then let his tongue be stilled. We shall now proceed the quarter of a mile that separates this place of audience from the place of demonstration. Then shall the whole world know the power that I bring to the Faithful.’ He darted a look at Eusebius, who was still looking polite. ‘The world shall know the power that I bring, and the world shall tremble!’
There was another roar of enthusiasm. More men rushed forward and threw themselves down before the still figure of the Caliph. All about him, other faces were looking openly scared. Meekal bathed in the applause. He held up his arms and turned round and round. He pointed at me, and spread his arms wide. He put his head up and laughed – though the sound of his laughter was drowned out in the tide of shouted war cries that poured over us. He darted round and looked briefly at me. He raised his eyebrows as if for my own applause. He even smiled. Then he nodded me towards the waiting chair.
I looked up at the sun. I looked at the quarter-mile distance to be covered – it looked closer to half a mile. Meekal had gone on far longer than I’d thought to take into account. Plan A was off the agenda. There was nothing else for it but to go for Plan B. I sighed and got to my feet. Instead of dragging myself over to the chair, I turned to face the Caliph and raised my own arms for silence.
‘Abd al-Malik,’ I cried in my best approximation of a younger man’s voice, ‘Caliph of the Saracens, hear the words of Alaric, Senator of the Greeks and occasional correspondent with your Prophet.’ There was complete silence from the crowd, though much looking and whispering between the men around the Caliph.
‘Shut up, you old fool!’ Meekal whispered loudly in Greek. He made to grab at my arm. I avoided him and, though making sure not to pass outside the collecting zone of the sound board, stepped towards where the Caliph sat.
‘Abd al-Malik,’ I cried again, ‘have I your permission to speak?’ I looked closely at his face. He stared blankly back. Then he nodded. Safe now from Meekal, I took up what I guessed to be the most effective point for the reflection of sound. ‘You will be aware that, whatever Meekal boasts, I am the one who has produced the Greek fire. I was brought here under duress from my place of refuge, and set to work to achieve what none of you had been able to manage for yourselves. I will not ask you to condemn this abuse of an old man. Besides, it has been done. But I do inform you that, if its final purpose is use against the Empire, the first use of what I have given Meekal is to destroy you and all your ministers – rather, to destroy you and all those ministers he has not yet falsely accused of treason.’
There was a confused murmuring from all around. Meekal made another attempt to catch me. I gave him a hard poke with my stick and raised my free arm towards the Caliph. With a sudden lapse of all into silence, the Commander of the Faithful stood and pointed straight at me. I smiled at Meekal and watched as he shrank back from me. I looked into his angry, scared face and coughed politely in place of laughter.
‘I accuse Meekal – formerly known among the Greeks as Michael, Commander of the Emperor’s Personal Guard – of treason against you. I declare that his intention is to take you within that walled compound and to spray you with a jet of fire that can turn flesh and bone to ash in the blinking of one eye. I will show you the mechanism he caused to be placed there for this purpose.’ There was another rising murmur. The Caliph remained on his feet. Eusebius was now asking urgent questions of his interpreter. All the time, Meekal stared at me, on his face a mixture of shock and plain confusion.
‘Before then, however,’ I continued once I had the general attention again, ‘I accuse Meekal of sorcery. I accuse him of sacrificial murder and necromancy, all in the interests of making himself Caliph in your place.’ I paused for the rising babble of shouts that I expected. Instead, there was complete silence. I heard the high splashing of blown sand against the wood behind me, and the call of a bird overhead. I glanced left to where Meekal was standing still. He had a hand to where his sword might be underneath his outer clothing. But he didn’t seem likely to go at me while I had the Caliph’s attention. I took a deep breath and continued with a slightly tarted-up description of what Edward had told me. I spoke quickly, wondering at every moment if Meekal would chance his luck with the Caliph by killing me before I’d come out with everything. But he seemed rooted to the spot.
‘And as the traitor to both God and man violated the corpse,’ I called out in a tone of horrified disgust, ‘his satanic accomplices danced about him chanting, “O, my brother, you shall be Caliph”! Yes, O Caliph, this I heard from the traitor with my own ears: “O, my brother, you shall be Caliph”! With spells and ceremonies forbidden on pain of death among all the Peoples of the Book, he called on the Dark One to assist in his work of treason. “O, my brother, you shall be Caliph”! “O, my brother, you shall be Caliph”! he was told – and told on the authority of the Dark One, to whom the traitor’s prayers are all truly directed.’
I’d got the story out. As I finished, I had to raise my voice – even if I stood in or near the best sound collecting zone – to speak above the gathering volume of terror and disgust. Eusebius was stretching forward in his seat, a look of near ecstasy on his face. The ministers and religious scholars were all pulling faces of exaggerated horror. At last, I was getting my reaction. Still impassive, though, the Caliph looked on in silence.
Trying not to behave like an old man, I moved with forced briskness back to where I’d been sitting. I ignored the grinding in my back and I leaned down and lifted the lead box. I turned back to the Caliph and held it triumphantly aloft.
‘Let the renegade Greek Michael tell you I am senile and deluded,’ I cried dramatically. ‘But let him then explain how this could be part of my delusion.’ I tugged at the lid that made for a perfect seal on the box. It came off with a gentle pop. I scooped off the top layer of the white powder with which it was tightly packed, and pulled out its main contents. I shook off the remaining powder, and – to what was now a collective and uncontrollable wail of fear – held aloft the severed head of the serving boy Meekal had chosen and throttled and then fucked.
Chapter 65
Even when desiccated, heads can be rather heavy. My right arm shook as I continued holding this one up for all to see. It may have been my preserving powder. Or it may have been the bright sunshine. But the head had a greyish tinge. Still, it was very well preserved. I’ll swear you could see the boy’s final gasp of terror on those rigid lips.
‘Behold the head of Meekal’s victim,’ I cried, still trying for a younger man’s voice. ‘I found it where it was thrown and have kept it safe all these months. Who, of those who were there, at the great feast of
welcome for me, will deny that this is the head of the boy that Meekal took for himself.’ There was a slow nodding among some of the men about the Caliph, and more shouts of horror from the crowd.
‘And this is your “evidence”, O Magnificent Alaric of ninety-eight summers?’ Meekal now called. His voice, rediscovered, dripped scorn. ‘You tell me that, without assistance, you followed me through the palace to the unfrequented hunting grounds, and that you closely observed me in this alleged act of sorcery?’ He looked towards the Caliph. He turned suddenly and stared me in the face.
I smiled and stared back. I might have been lying through my teeth about what I’d seen him do. But I really had gone off there – and on foot, mind you – with Edward the following morning. While the boy had moped about, trying to look other than frightened of touching the accursed object, I’d spent ages poking round with my stick. It had then been straight into a leather bag, and back for quite a successful experiment in preserving. Meekal could sneer all he pleased at my faculties. The head really did speak for itself.
Or did it? Meekal was speaking again, and now with recovered confidence.
‘The man asks me to call him senile and deluded,’ he cried in his earlier manner. ‘I readily grant his wish, Your Majestic Holiness. He is indeed senile and deluded. He tells you that he saw all this nearly three months ago. Surely an act so grave as this should have been reported at once to the relevant authorities. Instead, he expects you to believe that he witnessed it, and said nothing, and then worked obediently for me in what he claims to have known would culminate in a further grave act.’ He paused and waited for his words to sink in. There was silence all around us. As ever, the Caliph looked on, still standing, his face drained of expression.
‘Your Majestic Holiness,’ he went on with a sneer, ‘I put it to you that what the Old One describes, even had it happened – which I deny – could not have been witnessed by anyone in his condition. He needs special equipment to see in broad daylight. And he tells you what he saw in the moonlight?’ Meekal laughed. Without looking again at the head, he walked straight past me. He went over to my chair and rummaged about in the luggage pouch. He pulled out a small glass bottle and a larger silver box. He held them up. ‘The man is old. But I hardly need call him senile. I hardly need even remind you of his apostasy from the True Faith – and, therefore, of his unfitness to be heard in accusation against one of the True Faith. I need only say that he has spent too long shopping at the apothecary.’ He held up the glass bottle and waved it above his head. ‘The Old One is a notorious drunkard and opium eater. For seventy years, he’s been fuddling himself every day – and boring everyone about him with accounts of his unbalanced dreams. Who can doubt he has now lost all sense of reality?
‘Treason? Sorcery? Murder? The only question worth asking is where the fool got his body parts.’ With a contemptuous snort, he dashed my opium bottle to the ground. I watched as it hit a stone and shattered, and the precious juice of the poppy drained into the sand. Meekal stepped closer towards the Caliph. ‘Let us end this ridiculous interlude,’ he cried in a louder voice than before. ‘The Old One can be led off to a place where he can do no further harm to others or to himself. The rest of us can proceed about the business for which we are gathered.’
There was a perceptible draining away of tension. Someone laughed as I let my arm down just a little too fast, and the head fell to the ground, leaving me clutching a handful of hair. I stared down into the dead eyes. As if of its own motion, the head rolled down a slight dip in the sand and stopped beside the broken bottle. I stepped forward and bent to retrieve the head. Of a sudden, I overbalanced and fell on to my hands and knees. My stick was a few feet out of reach, and I struggled vainly to get back to my feet. Someone else in the crowd laughed. There was another laugh from somewhere else. I could now hear a soft giggling from many places within the crowd. Again, I tried to get up. Again, I failed. When I looked up from the ground, the Caliph was now sitting, a sour look on his face. One of his people was trying to whisper in his ear. As he leaned forward, the Caliph turned away. Meekal was strutting about, pointing at various slaves whose job it was to get things ready for the trek over to the demonstration.
‘I’ll kill you for this with my own hands,’ he said softly as he passed me by. ‘I’m sure I’ll find a way to make it slow and painful – even for you.’ I ignored him. The sun had now resumed its course and would soon be at the highest point. For what little it was still worth, I’d carry on. I forced myself back to my feet and stood forward again, and raised my stick for attention. I was ignored. I thought of turning and rapping my stick on the sounding board. But would anyone have paid attention then? Far over on my right, the carrying slaves were already on their feet, and were preparing to come forward to collect those who were to witness Meekal’s crowning achievement.
As I wavered, there was a commotion at the back of the main crowd. It was a matter of complaints and the displacement of one body by another, and then of the corresponding movements and complaints by those about the initial points of disturbance. It was nothing much at first – I even thought it was more of what seemed a concerted attempt to deny me my attention. But the sound and movement increased as someone pushed his way through the crowd closer and closer to the front.
‘The Old One speaks the truth!’ I heard a voice cry from an unexpected point along the front row of the crowd. I shaded my eyes and twisted my head to see if there might be better vision through some other cluster of tiny holes in my visor. But, if I couldn’t see him, there was no doubt it was Edward. ‘The Old One speaks the truth,’ he cried again. I saw him now. Dressed in the white riding costume of the Saracens, though with his short, blond hair uncovered, he crossed the sand that lay between me and the crowd and stood beside me. ‘With my own eyes, I saw all that he describes. I, Moslemah, a convert to the True Faith of the Prophet, also accuse Meekal of treason and sorcery!’
‘You’re a fucking idiot,’ I hissed at the boy in English as the chorus of shouts and argument swelled among the crowd. ‘I told you to get out of here. Why have you come back?’
‘I asked myself what you would have done in my place,’ he replied in Saracen. He raised his arms again for attention. But now Meekal was back from making his arrangements. He pushed Edward roughly away from me and looked straight at the Caliph.
‘This farce has been played out long enough,’ he called impatiently. ‘Whatever clothes he is wearing, this child is nothing more than a barbarian catamite. His conversion is as genuine as the Old One’s. Now his original owner is too worn out to play the manly part, he’s given his arse to the wanted traitor Karim – son of the traitor Malik, whose widow is, even now, awaiting questions about her own treasonable correspondence with the Empire and with the rebels.’ He pointed at a couple of guards, who’d been lounging on the edge of the crowd. ‘Arrest the Old One and his boy,’ he said with angry contempt. ‘Your Majestic Holiness, the demonstration awaits.’
I looked up at the sun. It was almost now at the zenith. It really was now or never. I stepped forward and took in a deeper breath than I thought my old lungs would ever accommodate.
‘Abd al-Malik,’ I shouted with firm urgency. ‘Abd al-Malik. You will not hear the word of man. Prepare now to hear the Word of Allah.’ The Caliph turned back to me. He raised an arm for silence. The crowd and all about were suddenly stilled. I walked back within the sound collecting zone. ‘The boy and I speak the truth,’ I called. ‘If you go within those walls, I swear that you will never come out alive. I watched all day yesterday as Meekal laid his trap for you. All this is the truth. And, as witness of the truth, I call on Allah, the Common Father of all men, to give a sign.’ I stopped and pointed dramatically up at the sky.
And now my heart froze. All day, every day for months, the sun had shone from a sky of unbroken blue. For the first time, I saw a little cloud barely the sun’s own diameter away from the sun. The shock drained all energy from my body. I watched and fought the incl
ination to let myself fall sobbing to the ground. Closer and closer the cloud drifted slowly towards the very edge of the sun. A half-mile away in the monastery, all had been set up on the assumption of bright sunshine. The sun would reach its zenith. The lenses would focus its beams on the piles of grey powder I’d placed in just the right positions. The powder would ignite, and would burn along the trails I’d laid to all the right places. Already, other lenses had started fires under the double kettle filled with the mixture. This would now be at boiling point – and would stay safely at boiling point unless . . . unless . . .
The cloud covered the sun. At once, the desert was plunged into shadow, and all the heat of the day was stopped. Still pointing up at the sky, I stood with shaking legs. Someone in the crowd was claiming that God had indeed sent His sign. No one paid attention. Meekal was already walking towards his own carrying chair. The Caliph was back on his feet, waiting for his people to move aside so he could step down from the platform. The cloud had covered the sun at its zenith, and seemed set to stay there until the zenith was past. I felt Edward lay a hand on my shoulder.
‘Come, Master,’ he said in English. ‘We tried our best. Karim tells me that we can—’
There was a sudden flash over on my left. I turned and looked into the bright mushroom of orange that had erupted above the walls of the monastery. I watched as it swelled and swelled – a hundred feet, no, two or three hundred – above the walls. Even with my visor to blot out much of the brightness, it was like staring straight into the sun itself at noon. I watched as the great ball of fire that swelled still greater at the top of the bright column seemed to move within itself – here dazzling, here relatively dark. It was like looking at the ridged contours of a brain illuminated from within.
I could only have seen this for the briefest moment. But time seemed to have stopped as I stood there, watching as all my finished mixture and the thousands upon thousands of gallons of its raw materials were converted into a second and momentarily brighter sun. Then I heard the roar of the explosion. It filled the whole desert around me, and sounded as loud in my bad ear as in the good. Even as I noted for the first time how atoms of light travelled faster than atoms of sound, and thought to frame some hypothesis to explain the difference, I felt something that can only be described as a great, invisible hand. It slapped me hard in all parts of my body, and, cupped in its gigantic palm, I was thrown back ten – perhaps twenty – feet before landing with a hard bump on the sand.
The Sword of Damascus Page 43